


frescoes are for losers

by mstigergun



Series: Inglorious [19]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Orlais, orlais is the actual worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:37:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5436923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mstigergun/pseuds/mstigergun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlais sucks: the fashion is the worst, the paintings are wretched, and Leonid is limited to very few drinks indeed. The company, at least, is better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	frescoes are for losers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enviouspride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enviouspride/gifts).



> Prompted by [enviouspride](http://enviouspride.tumblr.com) ( _a request_ ), who is the greatest and also on the regular lends me Basten and Virion and so gets double (triple!) points for basically everything she does. Takes place once a relationship has been established, but pre-Winter Palace.

“For  _fuck’s sake_ ,” hisses Leonid, hauling helplessly on a tangle of laces that runs from his hipbone to the top of his ribcage under one arm. “Just –  _Maker fuck me and call me Andraste_.”

Basten blinks, watching Leonid twist and curse and blaspheme in increasingly spectacular ways. Despite himself, an uneven smile curls his mouth.

“This is the – the most  _singularly stupid_  thing I’ve ever had to wear,” Leonid continues, hands jerking away as he gives up. His face is cast with a dark scowl and he shoves a hand through his hair, though it was perfectly coiffed a moment past. “And –  _who designs something you can’t put on by yourself?_ ”

Leonid throws himself down onto the plush chair by the dressing table, head tilting back as he stares up at the ceiling blankly.

“Orlesians,” Basten offers.

“Orlesians  _what_ ,” snaps Leonid, turning to shoot Basten a  _look_  that’s only pretending at venom. As much a lie as the pretty mask he’ll be forced to put on later.

Basten shoots him a quick grin. He’s leaned against the open balcony door and staring out at the courtyard beyond, which laden with fragrant blossoms and dotted with little birds flitting from tree to tree and chattering to each other. “Think to design something like your clothes.”

He shouldn’t find this amusing. But –

Leonid scoffs. Squirms in his chair. Sighs, arms falling limply by his sides.

“But why Orlais,” he finally asks, voice numb as he twists in his seat to once again stare emptily at the ornate ceiling above him, painted with scenes of dewey-eyed maidens and sweet-hearted cherubs that Leonid had, as soon as they were quartered there, declared  _the worst thing upon which I’ve ever laid eyes_.

Leonid sighs, a long, pained sound. “The Inquisitor might have sent me  _anywhere else_ , Basten. Nevarra? Excellent! The Marches? Well, that’s  _home_. A village in Ferelden that smells like piss? Fair enough. But  _Orlais_.”

“Orlais is home to a lot of powerful people,” Basten offers mildly, pushing himself off the door frame and wandering back toward the chaise where he’d been ensconced not long before Leonid had set to preparing himself for the evening.

 _Bracing myself_ , he’d said.  _I’d be better served by some blighted armour_.

“A drink?” Basten suggests. Their host had seen them well supplied with fine Orlesian wines, despite what she had to say about having an  _apostate ox-man_  beneath her roof.

Another long sigh. “No, I’d best not. Josephine has limited me to  _three glasses_ , and I desperately need to save those for this evening.”

Basten shrugs and pours himself a glass. No need to see it go to waste, even if it does come from a woman whose eyes had nearly bugged out of her skull when she’d set sight on him.

Silence stretches again, except for the chattering birds beyond the balcony and the very distant sounds of the servants scurrying about the house. Leonid kicks his feet out, shoving a boot against the edge of the dressing table and making it rock in place.

He shoves again.

“I hate this,” he says after a moment. His dark stare is fixed on the mask in particular, although his fingers are again twisting thoughtlessly around the series of laces that seem to defy his usual deft touch.

Basten pours another glass of wine, walking across the ample room to set it on the table in front of Leonid. “If you don’t tell her, I certainly won’t,” he says, hand falling to Leonid’s shoulder. His thumb traces the shape of Leonid’s collar bone beneath the fussy top, its sumptuous fabric starting to wrinkle under Leonid’s frustrated ministrations.

All the same, the tension drains from Leonid’s shoulders. His head tilts, forehead turning to rest against Basten’s forearm. “I don’t suppose,” he says after a moment, shifting away and pushing himself to his feet again, “that you – would help me with this. Maker knows  _no one_  needs this many laces, but – Well. You’ve certainly enough experience with your  _own_  ridiculous outfit. So, do you want to handle the laces while I drink wine?”

Basten smiles, something warm flaring beneath his chest. “Yeah,” he says. “I can do that.”

He might not be able to  _attend_  the ball, but he can manage this much. He can help with  _this_  at least.

“Good,” says Leonid, plucking the glass of wine from the table in front of him, shooting Basten a half-lidded look as he gestures expansively to himself. “Care to begin, then?”

It’s the look that does it, and Leonid must  _know_ , because he seems to have an innate understanding of just what to do to start Basten’s blood burning like this. He steps in closer, looming.

Anyone else might find it intimidating, but –

Leonid’s never been anyone else. His smile sharpens as he looks up at Basten, steady stare growing dark and heated as embers in a banked fire. Dangerous, almost.

Basten’s hand reaches out, finds the supple laces of Leonid’s trousers. “You’ve put the whole thing on wrong,” he says slowly, voice low. “You should just start from the beginning again.”

A quiet sound escapes Leonid’s throat. “Should I?” he murmurs, taking a long drink of wine. “Well, how fortunate for us that Orlesians espouse the virtues of being  _fashionably late_. But –” he adds, stopping Basten just as one hand starts to tug at the laces trailing up and down Leonid’s trim torso, the other already unknotting the laces tied between his hipbones, “So help me, Basten, you  _will_  get me in order again and you  _will_  be efficient about it.”

“Oh,” Basten says, leaning in close enough to brush his lips against the soft skin of Leonid’s forehead, “You know me. Always up for efficiency.”

A soft laugh, chased by the steady weight of Leonid’s palm against the curve of his horn. “Oh,” murmurs his lover, “That much I  _do_  know.”


End file.
